


that certain calmness

by grainjew



Series: stared at the sun and the sun smiled back and called itself pirate king (or: loyalty, on the high seas) [4]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen, Loyalty, Oaths & Vows, Sanji has like 20 emotions and cries on Luffys shorts as Luffy talks him through a loyalty oath, Whole Cake Island Arc, alternate summary:, dark ao3 show me the forbidden platonic intimacy, mmmm.... emotions, technically set after ch 902 but contains no actual anime spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-02 05:17:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14537493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grainjew/pseuds/grainjew
Summary: Because Sanji's rebellion has always been service, and there is nobody he would rather bow to than his captain.Sanji shut the galley door carefully behind him, and when he looked back up Luffy was fixing him with a stare, wide brown eyes open now.  He made a sort of beckoning gesture with his head, and said, "Sanji."So Sanji went to him.





	that certain calmness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fallingwish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallingwish/gifts).



> i had every plan to wait until luffy's birthday to post this but unfortunately i have no impulse control so you can have it a day early

Their celebratory meal petered out into a kind of relieved tiredness, all their movements sluggish and satiated as pre-dawn greyed the sky outside the galley windows. Sanji piled plates in the sink, sinking into the familiarity of simple chorework he had not been allowed to do for more than a week now, and then left the empty dining table behind and followed his captain's shadow out onto the deck.

The air was fuzzy with mist, heavy and alive on his skin. Everyone had disappeared elsewhere, except Carrot whose ears he could spot up on the crow's nest and Luffy, who sat dozing on the circular bench around the main mast, feet settled lightly on the ground, arms limp at his sides. Sanji shut the galley door carefully behind him, and when he looked back up Luffy was fixing him with a stare, wide brown eyes open now.  He made a sort of beckoning gesture with his head, and said, "Sanji."

So Sanji went to him.

The faint swish of that wiry salt-loving grass from Water 7 Franky had planted dropping dew onto his shoes as he walked, the firm steadiness of harbor embedded in Sunny's paneling so that she radiated safety even in a cyclone, Usopp's deft handiwork on her flags and sails. Sanji would have missed any or all of these elements that made Sunny uniquely Sunny, had not realized that he had missed them, but there was something in the pre-dawn greys and the way Luffy's gaze landed on him, heavy, that left him straining to hear even the slightest creaking of the sails.

"Sanji," said Luffy again, when Sanji had almost got to him.

Sanji deliberated for a moment, the brown of Luffy's eyes and the pallor of his bandages, and then swept forward the last two steps and instead of sitting like he had originally intended was pulled on some instinct to kneel, fall heavily to his knees at his captain's feet, graceless and imperfect.

He looked up, searching for something he couldn’t place, and found Luffy staring back. His head was tilted down to look at Sanji, and his hat tilted further to shadow his eyes so that Sanji couldn’t quite read the blank look on his face, and Sanji felt acutely the wiry grass digging into his knees, they way his hands hung useless at his sides.

 _Maybe I shouldn’t have_ — Maybe this was too much. Brooke had gotten on his knees and sworn to Luffy, back on Thriller Bark, but that was Brooke. This was Sanji.

He made to move, but Luffy shifted first as if sensing his intentions, moved an arm and placed his hand on the crown of Sanji’s head. Sanji stilled immediately under his touch, the gentleness of it as binding as any command.

“Sanji,” Luffy said. “You're not gonna leave again.”

Sanji wasn't sure if it was an order or a question.

“No,” he answered, because order or question that was the only acceptable response. “Never, Captain.”

“Good,” said Luffy, blank expression melting around his mouth into a small curved smile. “I can’t become Pirate King without Sanji, so you can’t go anywhere, okay?”

Luffy had yelled something similar, when Sanji had beaten him near to death and left him there, wrapping all the haughtiness of a prince around him like the liar he was, but he had been too wrapped up in pain and shame to think the words through. Hearing them again, all muffled into privacy by the light grey fog, delivered with that certain calmness Luffy used for only the most important of topics, left him nearly shaking with the realization of the power granted to him, and—

The fact of that power was terrifying, the mere idea that his absence could stop the force of nature that was Luffy's will and drive and dream in its tracks was earthshaking, the concept that Luffy uniquely relied on him, thought him completely irreplaceable and would accept no other, was awe-inspiring.

“Okay, Luffy,” he said, voice thinner than normal and weaker. “I won’t leave. I promise I’ll stay.”

“Good,” said Luffy again. He lifted his hand from Sanji’s head and ran it through Sanji’s hair instead, mussing up the surviving vestiges of the part Sanji had combed so neatly into place for the wedding so many hours ago. Sanji couldn’t even bring himself to get annoyed, not with the way he found himself leaning into the touch. “You’re home. Everyone’s safe.”

“Everyone’s safe,” whispered Sanji, feeling knotted tension unravel itself in his chest and tears form unbidden in his eyes. Everyone was safe, and he was where he was supposed to be, not some callous Vinsmoke prince on a throne but kneeling at his captain’s feet of his own volition.

It was a sort of cleansing, almost, a way to wash off all the tainted superiority he had had to pretend to and lower himself before the captain he owed and loved and wanted to serve. To be all that he was not allowed to be as a child, to be who Zeff had raised him to be, to be who Luffy needed him to be.

He had looked away from Luffy’s face at some point, he realized, as he found himself staring at the weave of Luffy’s tattered shorts and wondering when he had started crying, a silent sort of tears that couldn’t seem to resolve themselves to be a single emotion.

And then he felt a slight heaviness on his head like something was being placed there, felt a soft, blurry-edged patterning of shadow take form on his face, light like the ambient pre-dawn light that was suffused throughout the fog.

He looked up to see Luffy bareheaded, reached a tentative hand up and felt worn straw. At the rough texture of it, Sanji took a deep shuddering breath, almost a sob, and shakily fell forward, buried his face in the fabric of Luffy’s shorts as he realized what his captain had done.

Luffy’s hat.

His treasure, his memento, his driving force, the symbol on their flag and in their name, in his name, the emblematic feature of his presentation to the world. Luffy’s _hat_.

“Mine,” said Luffy, voice almost distant from the other side of Sanji's blurred vision, from above the weight of that hat, and Sanji felt his shoulders hitch in another sob. “My cook. The best cook in the whole world.”

“Yours…” breathed Sanji. He lifted his face slightly, swiped vaguely at his eyes with a sleeve. “Yours, always.” He reached up, ran his fingers over the brim of that hat, let some of the reverence he felt seep into his tone. “The Pirate King’s cook.”

“Mhm,” said Luffy, and Sanji looked up to see him smiling that small, fond smile again, his eyes crinkling with affection as he grinned down at Sanji, stood up to full height.

Normally Sanji stood taller than Luffy by a good half-head, but here, on his knees at his captain’s feet, he had to strain his neck to see Luffy’s face from under the brim of that hat. Luffy, spindly and fragile against the fading mists, Luffy, wiry and resilient as the grass on Sunny's deck, Luffy, captain-friend-savior-King, Luffy, safety, enthused acceptance, Luffy, _home_.

Luffy's arms reached down and caught him in a hug, pulled him up and held him tight.

Sanji felt tears sting at his eyes again, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to regret the way his legs shook from kneeling for too long, or the way his eyes felt raw from crying, not with Luffy’s hat on his head and Luffy’s arms around him and the fog tinted now with all the colors of dawn as the sun rose over the side of the Thousand Sunny.

_He was home._

**Author's Note:**

> the day i stop writing loyalty fic is the day i die tbh
> 
> come talk to me @grainjew on tumblr or twitter!!!


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